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This Milwaukee M18 cordless drill/driver chart has been my go-to whenever questions about their different models and tiers come up. So, I thought I’d share it.

The image above is clickable in case you need a larger version.

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There are 4 tiers of tools. There’s the brushed motor compact drill, which I’d bet is most often purchased as part of a combo kit, a new version of the compact brushless drill, a new higher-powered brushless hammer drill, and the the top-tier M18 Fuel brushless drill and hammer drill. There are also One-Key versions of the Fuel tools.

Following is a quick rundown of all the current models and what sets them apart from each other.

Prices and links are to the 2-battery kits. But, keep in mind that there are usually promos going on. The “standard” kit prices and links were chosen for baseline comparison purposes only.

For example, the M18 Fuel hammer drill kit is regularly $299, but there’s also a holiday season promo where you can get the same drill in a combo kit with an impact driver and Packout tool box, for the same $299.

Milwaukee M18 Compact Drill, 2606

Milwaukee’s “compact” brushed motor drill/driver can be found separately, and is one of the core tools in their non-brushless combo kits. It’s reasonably spec’ed, and has a modern design.

Milwaukee M18 Compact Brushless Drill, 2801

Step up to the compact brushless model, and you get the same torque rating, a small bump-up in lower gearbox speed, and a tool that’s smaller and lighter. The brushless motor is more efficient, and so you should see longer runtime. Plus, the drill is kitted with 2.0Ah batteries, giving you an even further boost in runtime.

Milwaukee M18 Fuel Gen 3 Drill, 2803

Stepping up to M18 Fuel, you get greater torque and speed, and a slight reduction in length compared to the brushless hammer drill. The drill/driver is only a tiny bit heavier. It’s also bundled with 5.0Ah batteries.

Gen 3 vs. Gen 2? One of the biggest differences is that the drill/driving and drill/driving/hammer modes are built into the adjustable chuck dial. You select a setting for driving depth/torque, and then swing it to the highest setting for drilling mode. On the hammer drill, you turn the dial one more notch for hammer mode. On the previous models, there was a separate driving/drilling or driving/drilling/hammer selection switch.

Milwaukee M18 Fuel Gen 3 Hammer Drill, 2804

I don’t know how, but Milwaukee managed to make the new M18 Fuel Gen 3 brushless hammer drill the same length and weight as the non-hammer drill/driver. Its specs are the same, except for the hammer drilling function, which delivers around 11% more beats per minute than the non-Fuel brushless model.

If I do a comparison, Makita’ll be last. They have so many models, and I can hardly understand the differences between some of them. The last time I tried to make sense of things, there was so much redundancy.

From Makita USA’s website, there looks to be 9 different impact drivers (or impact driver-like tools) that you can buy right now – XPT02, XDT131, XDT15, XDT14, XDT13, XDT12, XDT11, XDT111, XST01. I’m not counting the XDT11ZW, which looks to be a white version of the XDT11.

Plus the XDT16 makes 10. If I had to include the XDT11ZW, that would be 11.

The last I looked, the drill selection was a similar headache to sort through.

But, it’s not at all mobile-friendly, and nobody really much paid attention to it so I never went further than the first 14 entries. Plus, brands are all different about whether they disclose lengths, and weights (when available) are sometimes with batteries, other times without.

In other words, it’s too much of a pain to expand if 50% of readers can’t use it and [most? of] everyone else doesn’t care to.

Considering the new brushless hammer drill uses the old style handle clamp, its likely a debadged old Fuel version like discussed on GJ. Wish they could of shrunk the Fuel drill more but its still 3/4″ shorter than the Gen2. When I need a small drill I grab my M12 Fuel Gen2.

I just opened my Gen3 Packout kit. I was absolutely surprised how small the Gen3 drill is. Getting close to what the original M12 Fuel drill was, which is usually what I throw in through truck box. I have jonidea what this handle clamp is, but I would have to imagine very little stayed the same between generations.

Haha! I just started looking for something like this in spreadsheet form, realized it didn’t exist, tried to start tracking down the numbers myself, until my head started to spin!

Stuart, this is excellent. If you could make a resource like this available publicly, or if we could create a Google Doc that crowd-sourced the information, for all manufacturers, you would have a gem.

We went through several generations of hole hawgs then super hole hawgs – but were not much on donating anything other than cash – because of liability issues. We sometimes were persuaded to loan pieces of mobile equipment or tools for charitable endeavors. When we did so we would take a rider to our insurance to cover our potential liability. Knock on wood – we never had an insurance claim on these occasions.

Which (if any) of these have the new-style electronic clutch? I can’t find this in the specs ANYWHERE. Milwaukee sent me a M12 Gen2 drill to replace my defective Gen1, and I _hate_ the e-clutch. The torque applied appears to be dependent on drill speed (i.e. same clutch setting applies lower torque at lower speeds). Looking for a replacement and considering the 2801, but not if it’s got the e-clutch.

Chris,
This paragraph, from CopTool, should partially answer your question about the clutch; they’re talking about the clutch on the 2803 and 2804 vs. the 2703 and 2704. Not sure whether it applies equally to the 2801 and 2902 vs. the 2701 and 2702:

“Another big change is on the clutch, no longer a 2 ring system where first had drill/drive/hammer and the other had 24 torque settings. For the GEN 3 it’s all in 1 ring, Drill, Hammer, then 1-14 driver settings. Thank goodness, K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) this works great, less parts to break and 14 options is plenty to set the torque output for driving screws especially since most people carry an impact for driving and these are more often drilling anyway.”https://www.coptool.com/inside-look-milwaukee-m18-fuel-hammer-drill-2704-22-vs-2804-22/

fred on The Best Hook and Pick Set?: “Moody also make spring hooks and sets: https://www.amazon.com/Threaded-Spring-Tool-Kit-Light/dp/B0026GI62A/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=B0026GI62A&qid=1558784803&s=industrial&sr=1-1”